Let yourself be heard

I just got done e-mailing a couple of companies, asking them to switch to a recyclable package. I'm about to write to the gas station on the corner, to ask them to put out a bin for cans and bottles, which now go in their garbage. From time to time I do this: e-mail or write to companies asking them to change their policies to be more environmentally friendly -- or praising them for being so. I think it's really important that if you see something you want changed, you let businesses and companies know. They really do care what we think because we're their customers, their clients. Most companies have contact info on their web sites, so it's really easy to send a note to them. So, speak up!

When washing dishes and clothes, waste less water, soap and energy

I thought this article, entitled "For the dishwasher's sake, go easy on the detergent," in the New York Times was very helpful.

Here's just a taste of what the story has to offer: “Most people use 10 to 15 times the amount of soap they need, and they’re pouring money down the drain,” Mr. Schmidt said.

"Too much soap is also a problem in dishwashers and can cause dishes and glasses to look filmy. Again, check the detergent container for recommended amounts — you definitely don’t have to fill up the entire soap container in the dishwasher."

I tip my hat to Frito-Lay

Are Sun Chips delicious? Yes. Did they come in a very un-green plastic unrecyclable bag with a foil-y coating? Yes. Do they now come in a 100% compostable chip package? Yes!! Hooray for Frito-Lay for starting something that hopefully will catch on among other chip-makers!

The airline industry sucks at recycling

A report by Green America details the sorry state of recycling among airlines: "The average airline passenger generates 1.3 pounds of waste per flight. This might not seem like a large amount, but in 2008 there were 678 million airline passenger trips in the United States alone, which generated over 881 million pounds of waste. Approximately 50 percent of this waste is generated on flights. Nearly 75 percent of this waste is recyclable. However only about 20 percent is recycled."

Read the full report, and then e-mail this letter to tell them you want change!

My favorite countertop compost bucket

Our biggest problems with collecting food waste for curbside (not backyard) composting were moisture and odor. Sometimes there'd even be a puddle of wetness at the bottom of our bin, and at times the smell would drive us to change bags even though the bag wasn't full. So I love the effective design of the BioBag Max Air food waste bucket. It's got holes on all sides, so it really breathes, allowing heat and moisture to escape from the cornstarch-based compostable bags and the food to dry out, greatly reducing odors. The pictures on BioBag's website speak volumes. The bin is made from Novamont's bioplastic resin based on vegetable starches. And it sells for only about $9 online!

Earth-friendly pet care

This post combines my two passions: the planet and pet health. Want to take care of the Earth and your dog and/or cat at the same time? Check these out:

One of the most important factors in raising a healthy pet is FOOD. I think feeding them grass-fed, free-range meats and bones along with fresh organic veggies is best. One wonderfully convenient option in southwest Minneapolis is Woody's Pet Food Deli (thanks, Ingrid!). Second best is finding a good commercial food, and Karma organic dog food is good for pets and good for the planet.

I also love World's Best Cat Litter. Cats really like the texture of the litter, and it's not mined like clay litter. Read more here.

An unavoidable part about having a dog is picking up after it. BioBag Dog poop bags are completely biodegradable and compostable. And I like the company's philosophy: "Remember, our goal is to help divert all naturally biodegradable waste from entering our landfills. This includes food waste, yard waste, paper waste and pet waste. If any of these items are placed in an anaerobic (air-locked) landfill, their natural ability to biodegrade can be severely diminished."

Check out hemp collars and leashes made in the U.S. by earthdog. And Planet Dog makes 100% recycled toys, hemp collars and leashes and organic cotton T-shirts for humans.

And to finish on a warm and fuzzy note: West Paw Design makes some wonderful eco-friendly dog beds, sweaters and toys. Their beds are made from 85% recycled soda bottles and are made in Montana, not outsourced overseas.

Some sites that focus on eco-friendly pet products: Olive Green Dog, Only Natural Pet.

See something I missed? Drop me a line.

Galactic Pizza, I wish there were many more like you

Galactic Pizza in south Minneapolis uses locally grown ingredients, mozzarella cheese free of bovine growth hormone, wind power, all recyclable or biodegradable packaging and they donate part of their profits to charity. And their bison sausage is free-range. And they compost. And on and on. Fantastic! AND their pies are mighty tasty!

Read more about their vision. They call themselves "planet-saving pizza," and if more restaurants and businesses adopted their philosophies, oh what a happy planet we'd have.

The love fest continues

This post features someone else doing things right, and that got me thinking, maybe I should devote a series of posts to Companies Doing The Right Thing.

I had lunch yesterday in St. Olaf's Stav Hall. There was a great variety of food, and it was good-tasting, too. As for the green aspects, WOW. There were signs encouraging students not to take more food than they could eat, results of an audit showing how much food was wasted and suggestions for how to improve, hormone-free local milk, fair-trade coffee, there were no throwaway plates, containers, trays or utensils and there were lots of healthful options. The food-service manager also buys local fruits and grains in season. And they're working on buying grass-fed beef! Way cool.

To read more about their environmental initiatives, click here.

Bon Appetit is the company that runs St. Olaf's food service, and they have information about their sustainable and socially responsible choices for food.

Go, Lunds!

I e-mailed Lunds because I noticed that my neighborhood store had added a big bin for co-mingled recyclables to their front entryway and that they offer quite a few brands of environmentally friendly dish and laundry soap (rather than just one like you'd see in some mainstream stores), so I was sending them a pat on the back. Read on to see what else they're doing! I of course prodded them to compost their food and paper waste, too.

"Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding our Lunds Penn Avenue location. The plastic bag recycling and environmentally friendly cleaning products are only a couple of the initiatives our company is doing to reduce, reuse and recycle. We are working with all of our vendors and suppliers to provide more sustainable packaging and are constantly increasing the numbers of organic and natural products in our stores. We have taken several steps over the past few years to reduce our power usage by changing electrical, heating and refrigeration systems to more environmentally-friendly ones.

We are also proud of our partnership with Second Harvest. For each reusable bag our customers bring to our stores, we donate 5 cents to Second Harvest. We have reduced our plastic and paper bag usage and have donated thousands of dollars to Second Harvest through this initiative."

Green dry-cleaning

We're pretty lucky in the Twin Cities to have quite a few environmentally friendly dry-cleaning services to choose from. There's
Prestige Cleaning Center with locations in SW Minneapolis and Uptown,
Colonial Cleaners on Lyndale in SW Minneapolis,
Mulberrys Garment Care in St. Louis Park and Minneapolis,
and then there's Clean 'n' Press, with a ton of locations all over the metro area. Each website details their green cleaning methods, and all accept hangers for reuse.

I'm sure I'm neglecting some dry-cleaning places, so let me know about them.

I did not know this about Styrofoam

Written by the late great John Addington, styleatollah at the Star Tribune:

There is no such thing as a Styrofoam cup, or Styrofoam picnic cooler, or egg carton, or picnic plate. Dow Chemical Co. patiently informs us of this each time we use the trademark incorrectly, or when we use the word uncapped. Styrofoam is used in insulation, in buoyancy billets for boats and in decorative board. It is never used in consumer products. To be entirely proper we should just say plastic foam cup or whatever.

Construction and demolition recycling

If you're doing home remodeling or any big home-improvement project, you throw out a lot, right? So maybe you need a dumpster. But you don't want all that going into a landfill, right?

Check out Atomic Recycling. From their website:

"Construction waste doesn’t belong in the environment. That’s why recycling is such a top priority for Atomic. In fact, no other waste company in the Twin Cities can recycle more types or tons of debris than Atomic Recycling. So whether you’re a top construction company or a homeowner with a small remodeling project, there’s only one green choice: Atomic Recycling."

They separate out all recyclable materials, about 63 percent of each load. I found this list of what they do and don't recycle, including pictures, interesting.

Go, Aveda!!

From Saturday's Star Tribune on Aveda's very successful plastic bottle cap recycling program.

Local company’s twist on recycling
While cities say, “No, you can’t” recycle plastic caps, people nationwide say, “Yes, we can,” and Aveda Corp. leads the way.

By Karen Youso kyouso@startribune.com

Every day, thousands of plastic bottle caps arrive at Aveda Corp. in Blaine.
The caps of many colors come in sacks, boxes and bags. They arrive by mail, auto and hand; from churches, schools, businesses and households. They come from as near as down the road, and as far away as Honolulu. Stacks of discarded packages with return labels from Illinois, New York, North Carolina litter warehouse bins.
Donors get nothing in return for making the trek or paying the postage to Blaine, except the good feeling that comes with recycling, said Aveda spokesman Evan Miller.
The bottle caps — from water, soft drinks, shampoo, it doesn’t matter — are turned into new caps for Aveda’s hair-care products. And the process can be repeated indefinitely, Miller said. They won’t be thrown away. Indeed, just last week, about 30,000 pounds of caps left Aveda to be recycled.
By most measures, Aveda’s four-year-old cap recycling program is a ringing success. But while Aveda is saying, “Yes, we’ll take your caps for recycling,” many municipalities, such as Minneapolis and St. Paul, are saying, “No. Caps can’t be recycled; throw them away.”
Clearly, people want to recycle caps, and they will go to some lengths to do it, so why can’t it be easier? Why can’t it be a part of curbside plastic pickup?
It’s not feasible, industry and civic recycling experts say.
“The recycling facilities were designed on the bottle,” explained Dianna Kennedy with Eureka Recycling, St. Paul’s recycling hauler. Bottles are made of No. 1 plastic resin, but the caps use No. 5. They are different kinds of plastic, with different melting points.
End markets like clean material — all the same kind of plastic. To be successfully recycled, caps would have to be separated by the consumer, or separated in the sorting and kept separate through shipping and processing.
Even if that were accomplished, finding a market for them is difficult. Recycled bottles are used by manufacturers to make lots of items: insulation, clothing, carpet, even new bottles. But they can’t use caps. That plastic doesn’t work for them, said Susan Young, Minneapolis’ director of solid waste and recycling. Caps have to be sent to a different manufacturer, and “we don’t have a steady, reliable market for plastic caps,” she said.
Aveda has created its own end market for recycling. Minneapolis considered creating a special curbside pickup program to work with Aveda, but the numbers were massive. Aveda would be overwhelmed, and “we do not want to become a recycler,” Miller said. Aveda is an international cosmetic and hair care company, a division of Estee Lauder Companies.
Some haulers collect bottles with the caps at curbside and recycle their caps. Anita Sellers, a spokeswoman for Waste Management’s Recycle America, a recycling hauler in many Twin Cities suburbs, said that the company recycles caps if they’re attached to the bottle. Bottles with caps are pulled off the sorting line and sent to a variety of processors.
But Young is skeptical. Picking them up and having them actually end up being recycled isn’t the same thing, she said. Caps in a shipment of bottles are considered “residual” or garbage. They’re sorted out by the processor and then thrown away.
As good as it looks, Aveda’s program is far from perfect. The plastic caps collected in Minnesota are trucked to a sorting and grinding operation in Alabama. The resulting shredded plastic is shipped back to Wisconsin to be made into plastic caps that are then sent to Blaine.
It’s closed-loop recycling, the best kind — but it’s a loop that includes lots of shipping, which is not so good. There’s a lot of pollution generated in all the travel.
But the system in place is not the end Aveda is looking for. Beyond keeping plastic caps out of landfills and waterways, the company wants to show municipalities and recycling companies it can be done, and to pressure them to start recycling caps.
Local recyclers respond that the real pressure needs to be on the manufacturers.
“For communities to figure out how to recycle every kind of plastic is nearly impossible and it puts the responsibility, and the expense, on taxpayers,” Kennedy said.
The only real solution, she said, is one that engages manufacturers in designing their products and packaging to fit into community systems, not the other way around.
Karen Youso • 612-673-4407